Spun Her Around On The Damp Old Stones
by alphayamergo
Summary: Captain America had done his duty. Steve Rogers still had a life to live. (Spoilers for Endgame.)


**AN: ****That Steggy ending, guys. That Steggy ending made me feel a lot of things. ****Spoilers for Endgame, of course, and the title's from Jenny of Oldstones in Game of Thrones. It felt appropriate.**

Steve could never say when he'd first thought of it.

Maybe it had been when he saw Peggy in her office, looking so beautiful and competent that it made Steve's heart hurt. Maybe it was when Bucky said, "I'll miss you, pal," like he already knew. Maybe it was as he returned the soul stone and stared into the withered, tired face of the embodiment of evil. Maybe it was as he stared down at the Pym Particles, ready to return to 2023.

Maybe it was all of them. It didn't matter when, exactly, he'd had the thought. What mattered was that he materialised into existence in Brooklyn, 1947, on a cool, autumn afternoon, red and orange leaves blowing through the street around him.

Captain America had done his duty. Steve Rogers still had a life to live.

* * *

He found Peggy in an automat. Steve spotted her entirely by accident, just happening to glance in the window as he passed. She was chatting to a waitress, smiling in a way that reached her eyes. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The bell over the door rang, and Peggy glanced up – a spy's instinct, he thought, because he had never known Natasha, Clint or Fury to not glance up at an opened door. Peggy froze, the fork dropping from her hand. The waitress looked up at Peggy's reaction, and her mouth dropped open.

He knelt down next to her chair, looking up at her still-frozen expression. Very gently, he took her hand. "I'm so sorry I'm late."

Peggy's lip trembled. "You couldn't call your ride?"

Steve huffed out a laugh, half torn between genuine laughter and tears. "I couldn't call my ride," he agreed.

She brushed her free hand against his cheek tentatively, almost slumping in relief as her fingers touched his face. "Howard told me he stopped," she said. "If I'd known, I would have come, I would have…"

"It wasn't Howard," he said. "It's a long story, Peggy. God, it's the longest story." _Natasha. Tony. Sam and Bucky, Wanda and Clint, Rhodey and Nebula and Rocket and Carol and Okoye._

Without taking her eyes off him, Peggy said with deliberate calmness, "Angie, I'm going to need the bill, now."

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course," said the waitress, glancing between them. She shuffled off and returned only a moment later, handing Peggy the cheque and hissing, "You've been holding out on me, English."

"Sorry, Angie," said Peggy, rather unapologetically.

Angie grinned, her eyes bright and laughing. "Sure you are, English. You get going with lover boy here, and I'll see you later."

"See you later," repeated Peggy, and dragged Steve up and out of the automat.

* * *

"Are you going to tell me your story?" asked Peggy, her head resting on his chest and tracing her fingers along his stomach absent-mindedly.

He barely even knew where to begin. "I'm not the Steve that went down with the Valkyrie, Peggy. It's been years."

Peggy's fingers paused on his stomach. She propped herself up on her elbow so she could look down at him, dark hair falling around her head. "How long?"

"Eleven years," he admitted.

She flopped back down on to the bed. "Bloody hell, Steve."

"They found me in 2012," he said. "They defrosted me and put me to work leading the Avengers against threats that the regular military couldn't contain. It was only a few days ago that I even had the ability to come back to you."

"They have time travel in the future?" asked Peggy, raising her eyebrows.

"It's a very recent thing," said Steve. "Almost impossible."

Peggy's hand found his, and he intertwined his fingers with hers, clinging on with everything he had.

"Howard had a son," he said. "Tony. Probably cleverer than Howard, honestly. He was the one who worked it out. He was the one who…"

Peggy squeezed his hand when he couldn't finish. "You had a life there. Friends."

He nodded, swallowing. If he closed his eyes, he could see Natasha, still, saying that he was her family. He could see Tony, carrying his daughter in his arms. Sam and Wanda and Thor and T'Challa. "They were good people, Peggy."

"If they were your friends, they would be," said Peggy. She pushed herself back up and looked down at him, curls askew and her face soft. "You can tell me about them, if you want."

"Natasha was one of the first people I met in the twenty-first century," said Steve, his heart constricting a little. "If you'd asked me at the time, I don't think I would have guessed she would be one of my best friends, but…"

* * *

They agreed to keep his return quiet. They reached out to the Howlers, to Howard, to Bucky's sisters. Only Peggy knew about his eleven years in the future. Peggy and Howard forged him a new identity. He grew out his beard to help cover his face, let his hair grow a little longer than he used to. But his best defence against recognition – as he'd learned from Natasha – was simply that people didn't _expect_ to see Captain America. So they didn't.

In some ways, slipping back into the 1940s was as easy as breathing. Sometimes, though, it was like a filter had been placed over his eyes, so everything was just the slightest bit different.

Sometimes, he hummed Hamilton songs under his breath, and the people around him questioned what _genre_ he was singing. Sometimes, a joke or pop-culture reference slipped out that made sense in the twenty-first but earned him blank stares in the twentieth.

Sometimes, it was worse. The Civil Rights Movement was slowly beginning to pick up steam – but with it came the rebirth of the KKK. The eugenics movement might have been discredited by the revelation of the Holocaust, but the racist sentiments that caused it hadn't dissipated. It wouldn't be long before the women's liberation movement began, but Peggy still seethed at the misogyny of her colleagues.

"Does it get better?" asked Peggy after one long day. She was collapsed on their sofa, her legs lying across Steve's lap.

"Slowly," he said. "There are setbacks and bumps in the road, but there's progress, Peg."

"Were you still fighting the good fight?" she asked, nudging him with her foot.

"Hell yeah," he said. "I scandalised so many conservatives, Peggy. Tony Stark almost had an aneurysm, he laughed so hard the first time I went on Fox News."

Peggy sighed. "I just wish they'd hurry up about it all."

Steve took her hand and rubbed gentle circles with his thumb. "You deserve so much more than what they're giving you."

Peggy sat up, placing her hand on his cheek and smiling at him softly. "I know. Thompson's lucky I haven't murdered him already. I think you keeping me sane is the only reason I haven't."

Steve snorted. "I'm pretty sure the only reason _I _haven't murdered Thompson is because of you keeping _me_ sane."

Peggy laughed, shifting so that she could rest against his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her hair. "We are a pair, aren't we? I do believe we've given Mr Jarvis grey hairs."

"Oh, no, those grey hairs are all on you," said Steve, elbowing her. "He had them all well before I came back."

* * *

They name their eldest child Natasha Colleen Carter, their second Michael James, and their third – another girl – Samantha Wanda. Peggy was the first to suggest Natasha Colleen, and he had stared at her, wide-eyed.

"What?" she asked, a hint of laughter in her voice. "I thought you'd appreciate the name."

"I do," he said, slowly. "But… I met Natasha. At your funeral. She was…"

Peggy laughed outright at that. "Oh, darling," she said. "Did you really think my children were from anyone else, at this point?"

Steve opened and closed his mouth several times before saying, "I suppose I hadn't really thought about it."

She patted his cheek affectionately. "I think you've been a little dense, my darling."

"I suppose," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "She was wonderful, Peggy. All of them were."

"So there's more, is there?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Good. This world needs more Carter-Rogers in the world. Between us, we should be able to start a revolution."

"Ooh," said Steve, a smile tugging at his lips. "I'm not sure the word's ready for a Carter revolution." Peggy laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

"We'll make them ready," she said. She moved her hand to rest over her stomach. "We'll make them better."

* * *

He told the children stories at bedtime, but not from any book.

He told them of a girl who escaped a hate that had once consumed her, who had kept the capacity to love even after so many losses, who was the strongest of all of them.

He told them of a man and a woman who had done terrible, terrible things in another person's name, and had dedicated their lives to saving as many lives as they could in their own name.

He told them of a man who had lost his best friend to war, and had dedicated his life to bringing everyone else home from it.

He told them of a man who gave his life for the world, who could finally, finally rest.

Most of his friends thought of them as stories. It wasn't unreasonable. While Peggy ran the world's most secretive agency, he had taken to drawing comic books, and if his heroines had a tendency to have a hint of red in their hair, or scarlet leaking from their fingertips – well, no one was around to call him on it.

There were three children calling him Dad, now, and so many more calling him Uncle Steve. (The day that a tiny, precocious Tony Stark had called him Uncle Steve for the first time was potentially the weirdest day of Steve's life.) He was uncle to the Howler's kids, to Bucky's nieces and nephews, to Tony. Once upon a time, he had told Tony that the man who wanted a family and stability had died in the ice. He hadn't even realised he was lying at the time. Now, he watched them all – his kids, his friends' kids, his beautiful, wonderful _wife_ – and almost couldn't breathe, he loved them so much.

"About enough for the Carter-Rogers revolution," whispered Peggy into his ear at one reunion, making him snort up his beer. Peggy smiled at him innocently as Howard cackled across the room.

"Watch what you drink, Dad!" yelled Tasha, twelve-years-old and still learning how snark worked. The rest of her cousins took up the yell, good-natured jeering coming from all corners of the garden.

There were things that he hadn't missed about the twentieth century. There were things he did miss about the twenty-first. But these kids were going to be the ones who built that century, who changed the world. Steve wouldn't trade the world for a single one of them.

* * *

"Was there ever anyone?" murmured Peggy one night, her chin resting on his shoulder as they slowly twirled around the living room.

"Anyone?"

"Did you ever find any other dance partners?" she asked.

He leant back to he could look her in the eye. "No, Peg. I mean, they convinced me to go on a date or two occasionally, but… It's you." Her grasp on his hand strengthened, and he pulled her ever so slightly closer to him. "It's always been you."

She leant up and kissed him, soft and long and slow.

"Thank you for coming home to me," she said as she pulled away. "It's always been you for me, too, you know. I tried, once. Maybe it might even have worked. But Daniel… I couldn't forget you, and neither could he."

"I will always come home to you," he promised. "Always."

She pulled him down to kiss again, but just as their lips met, the door swung open and little Sammy toddled in. She looked up at them, cocking her head.

"Dance?" she asked.

Steve met Peggy's eyes, saw the barely suppressed smile in them. "Alright, squirt," he said, letting go of Peggy's waist. "Let's teach you how to dance."

He arranged her on his toes as Peggy turned the radio on, _It's Been a Long, Long Time_ wafting through the air. Sammy shrieked with laughter as they danced, and above her head, Steve watched Peggy, standing so, so beautiful by the window.

* * *

It had been seventy-five years and three hundred and twelve days since Steve had heard his brother's voice.

"Sam!"

He smiled.


End file.
